Every general-purpose computer has an operating system to provide a user interface between a user and the computer and to run other programs on the computer. Operating system programs provide a software platform on top of which other programs, called application programs, are able to run, and perform basic tasks, such as recognizing an input from a keyboard, sending an output to a display apparatus, keeping track of files and directories on disks, and controlling peripheral devices such as disk drives and printers.
Currently, most PC manufacturers provide a bundle of basic and essential software programs already installed in the computers being offered for sale, for user's convenience. Thus, upon purchasing a new computer, a user has no need to install such programs, and all that is required is for the user to register the installed programs with the programs' manufacturers.
If a user bought a computer operated with a Windows® 98 operating system program, he may first add information to some part of the program to his computer if necessary and compose the program to his environment, such as inscription of his name, keyboard composition, time setting, and so on, to complete the installation of the program.
In such a user program install process, a user must correctly input a product key of the program into product key input window, otherwise the program cannot be completely installed and will not operate until the correct product key is input. In other software programs, which must be completely installed by the user, the product key, also known as the product ID, product certificate information or serial number, must be correctly entered before any part of the program can be installed.
Current software programs, however, have complex product key structures (e.g., the Windows® 98 program has a product key of 25 characters), thus there is a high probability that an error occurs in inputting the product key unless a user carefully checks each character of a product key. Also, since software program product keys are typically stored in a specific area of a hard disk in the hard disk drive, should the user have to reinstall the software programs on his/her computer due to a software failure or due to damage to a portion of the hard disk, etc, then the user must manually input the product keys again for the software being reinstalled. However, if the user cannot find the authentication certificate of a program and has no record of the product key of the program, he cannot reinstall the software. Moreover, if the operating system software had to be reinstalled, or a disk recovery operation needed to be performed, and the user had no record of the product key for the operating system software, the computer would be inoperable until either new software was purchased or, if the software was properly registered, the manufacturer could provide the necessary information to the user.